


Bedtime Stories

by tehkittykat



Series: Bedtime Stories [5]
Category: Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Betrayal, Tron: Evolution, Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: GFY, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-16
Updated: 2013-03-16
Packaged: 2017-11-07 21:53:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/435848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tehkittykat/pseuds/tehkittykat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clu and Jalen take on the User world with the help of a very young Sam Flynn. Leaping into the unknown is a lot harder than it looks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Define Kansas

The Portal was a maelstrom. The distant, star-like beacon had resolved itself into a massive vortex of light and wind, power crackling and channeling up and _out_ with breathtaking force. Of course, the complex had been placed far from Tron City for that precise _reason_ , but it was one thing to know and another thing to actually be _in the middle of it_.

Clu clutched the master disk in both hands, frozen on the bridge. A double-hex of steps forward, raise the disk as if the Portal was just another I/O tower, and he would be on the other side. No fuss. The translation process was, in itself, simple enough that the entire operation was controlled by a swarm of functions instead of a fully-realized program. Flynn had done it several hundred times. He was made to be Flynn’s copy, gifted with User code in his own matrix, and tenuously connected to the master disk itself thanks to carrying it this far. He could do this.

“Clu, you’ve got to actually _walk in_ if you want to use the Portal,” Jalen said dryly, giving him a light shove forward.

“I thought you were waiting in the jet?” Clu said, tipping his head back to meet the taller program’s eyes as he dug his heels in. It was stupid. He was supposed to be going through. _Had to_ , now, or Flynn was going to get stuck in the system and then where would they all be? The User could probably wipe the whole thing down to the last bit even without his disk. Getting trapped might be incentive to _try_ , especially with the memory of that fleeting ugliness fresh in Clu’s files.

“I _was_ waiting in the jet, but we have maybe an couple of microcycles left,” Jalen said logically, setting his hands and _shoving_ Clu towards the column of searing light. The forward motion was unstoppable—Jalen massed quite a bit more than he did, and the sudden _slide_ of his feet against the bridge argued that the ISO was using an exploit to alter the friction coefficient. He _knew_ he shouldn’t have shoved Jalen in Tron’s direction when the architect had started making noises about competing in the Games. Tron _cheated. Frequently._

“Wait! If you keep going you might--!” Clu started to say, the words nearly ripped away by wind as Jalen gave a last push forward and suddenly they were _both_ standing in the beam.

“Just do it! We don’t have much time!” Jalen said, tugging at Clu’s arms, one of his rare intense stares focused squarely on the administrator. He was _right_ , crash him, nanocycles ticking away faster than they ever had. With a muttered curse, Clu raised the disk, almost flinging it upward in hurry as his internal clock ticked down. They _weren’t going to make—_

The translation was instant.

Between one breath and the next, Clu’s senses folded inside-out, his awareness of the humming, living system around him blinking off like the sharp edges of a no-bit digging into his palm. What replaced it was silence, darkness, and a sense of _weight_ that had not been there before. He held still, frozen and hoping that his senses were just temporarily glitched.

“Jalen?” he whispered, dread rising when he didn’t sense the other program’s energy in his proximity. There was no _system link_ , no way to send a query or even something as simple as a _ping_ to see if he was still in the registry. Was the Portal only made for one? Was Jalen fundamentally incompatible with the translation process? He was an ISO and there was still so much no-one understood about how they managed to function and interact with the system. Jalen could be _derezzed_ and it was _all his—_

“Clu?” came the incredulous reply, and the admin could breathe again. “Where are you?”

“Here…” Clu said, cautiously sticking a hand out to feel around. Dim outlines were starting to resolve out of the darkness, a strange subliminal humming noise coming from somewhere in front of him. His seeking hand encountered something warm and moving, an internal cue pushing for more data as if he wasn’t quite getting full resolution from touch through his gloves anymore. Squinting, he looked up and saw the faintly reflective shine of Jalen’s eyes and the markings on his face, no longer glowing with their own energy. The ISO’s head was bowed to avoid brushing the low ceiling of the tiny room they’d materialized in, gold-washed light filtering in dimly from a window? lamp? near the hum’s origin.

“ _Oh_ ,” Jalen said, “Sorry. I can’t ping you anymore.”

“Me either.”

“So.. where are we?” Jalen said after an uncomfortable moment spent _processing_ that. It was like a derezzed limb, functions already ticking over strangely without the data they were accustomed to. How did Flynn _stand_ it?

“The User world,” Clu said a little more surely. The routine was firmly established and there was no reason to doubt that they had successfully translated. It was… oddly similar to the Grid so far—workspace dominated by a large terminal access point, the source of the humming noise and no doubt with a cluster of calls at the ready, and storage along the walls. The typical scatter of fragmented work-in-progress and cryptic notes that tended to accumulate in any workstation Flynn occupied for any length of time and… _construction_ equipment? Or at least a miniaturized version, pointed at the terminal’s chair.

“This can’t be _it_ ,” Jalen said, running a hand back through his hair and making a face when his elbow almost ran into the ceiling.

“One thing at a time,” Clu said tiredly, “We need to find out what Flynn _does_ here so that I can take his place.”

There was.. something pinned to the wall above the terminal, though it wasn’t any kind of display that Clu was familiar with. Scrawled boldly at the top was “The Grid” in Flynn’s handwriting, but it was like no system map Clu had ever encountered, even from the beginning. The User’s plans? There were other things pinned as well, colorful scraps of text that made little sense and a few image files. Hard to tell what would happen to the display if he touched it—did it work like any other call, or would the data be erased without a special password? The terminal was almost certainly secured, so there weren’t going to be any answers forthcoming _there_. Clu wasn’t sure what kind of authorizations he would need to hack in order to completely take over for Flynn, and with a regretful sigh he turned away to see what had absorbed his companion so thoroughly that there hadn’t already been an avalanche of questions.

Jalen had _naturally_ gravitated to the construction laser. He handled it with the ease of long practice, humming absently as he took in the power cables trailing to the wall and the faint-glowing readouts at the back.

“I think this is the Portal,” he finally pronounced, “And it won’t be recharged for another… thirty minutes. What’s that in millicycles, though?”

“Three, assuming a steady system clock,” Clu said. _That_ thing was the Portal on the User end? It seemed so… fragile. Jalen replaced it on the stand, making a face.

“Well, we did think this might take a while,” Jalen said after a moment.

“Let’s… look around,” Clu said slowly. The small workspace didn’t look likely to give up its secrets, and if it was partitioned _logically_ the only information they’d find would relate back to what they already _knew_. Jalen immediately started looking for the door, ISO curiosity winning out, but Clu lingered, eyes caught by the strange system map again. It felt like a cipher, and if he could just _understand_ it, he might be able to understand what was _wrong_. With everything.

“Ow.” Clu’s gaze went back to Jalen, where he was glaring at the door. It hadn’t opened automatically, but the ISO found the mechanism before Clu could point it out to him. The doorway was low, and Jalen ducked out with a noise of interest. Probably it was wise to follow. No telling how much trouble the architect could manage to get into, and that wasn’t _factoring_ Jalen’s personal trouble magnet into the equation. With a last look back at the cryptic map, Clu headed out the door and into a narrow, dark staircase. There was a smear of light at the top through a small portal, and noise filtered down. Jalen was already nowhere in sight.

“Jalen?” Clu called, peeking out of the stairwell. It opened onto a cavernous room full of flashing, dizzyingly-colored lights and… boxes? that emitted the odd beeping and grinding noises he’d heard from the workspace entrance. They had strange, nonsensical labels, all except the one that hid the door to the workspace they’d materialized in. That was labeled _Tron_ , and was apparently important enough that light proclaimed the fact the box with the security program’s designation was _there_ right above.

Did Tron know about the thing? What was it _for?_

“Jalen?” The mishmash of color was giving Clu a headache, contradictory information flooding his processes. But this wasn’t the Grid and the boxes couldn’t possibly have allegiance to _anything_ —they just _sat there_ full of whatever mysterious purpose the Users had for them.

“Over here!” Jalen had located another stairwell, and Clu gratefully wove through the noisy, colorful confusion to follow. The ISO was the only _normal_ thing around.

“It looks like these stairs lead up there,” Jalen said when Clu was closer pointing up to a bank of windows overlooking the floor of the room, “It looks like another workspace, maybe living quarters.”

“It can’t be any louder than here,” Clu said.

“Headache too?” Jalen said sympathetically as they clattered up the steps.

“I just hope we acclimate or it will be a _long_ three millicycles,” Clu said.

“I hear you.. I’m starting to wonder what the attraction is,” Jalen said, a little more careful with the door mechanism this time. Thankfully the space—which turned out to be some kind of apartment—was proof against the sheer volume level of the place, which was worse than the _End of Line_.

There was a long, low couch at the bank of windows, a handheld call tossed carelessly among the cushions. More storage, much more ornate this time, that held a small collection of User clothes. Another terminal, locked, and what turned out to be file storage. Nothing seemed very well organized or collated, though at least the file storage indicated that Flynn’s function here had something to do with an entity named Encom and that he worked closely with a pair of Users named Alan and Roy… There was an entire small database of other Users on the desk, each logged by name and followed with a string of numbers and nonsensical phrases. Network addresses, maybe?

“It might take all three millicycles just to figure the data out,” Jalen said mournfully after he had taken charge of a rather large collection of files related to this Encom that Flynn was associated with.

“We don’t have anything better to do right now, and we can’t risk the other Users figuring out what’s going on,” Clu said, flipping through the User database again to bring it back to the start. At least the design of _this_ file storage system made _sense_. “Besides.. _you_ were the one who volunteered to come along.”

“Yeah, remind me not to do that in the future,” Jalen said, sticking his tongue out at Clu before diving back into the pile of papers.

“I will,” Clu said, sighing, “Assuming we get the chance.” A memory tag ghosted up through his calculations, marked as something appropriate to say in this exact kind of situation, and Clu blurted it without a second thought even though it was part of the ever-present junk data he carried around in memory from the _way_ he had been compiled. Maybe it applied _here_.

“We’re not _in_ Kansas anymore.”

“Where is _Kansas_?”

“I… have no idea.”


	2. Then the Morning Comes

Jalen had slept. Clu had _not_. Somewhere in the time that had passed _something_ happened to the sky and light had poured into the arcade from outside. Without the accompanying roar of a recognizer or other obvious source for the illumination, Clu hadn’t even _registered_ it until Jalen woke and _stared_. The brilliance hanging in the now-blue sky superficially resembled the Portal and defied all explanation, but, perhaps thankfully for already-straining processes, figuring the phenomenon out was pushed down the priority queue when none of the Users wandering into the streets seemed concerned. And, besides, they were going to be _late_.

It was an adventure in parsing User-coordinates and inefficient dataflows on what _had_ to be a prototype ‘cycle before they finally made it to what the data showed was Flynn’s primary residence.

True to the hasty note found buried under sketches for lightcycle designs, there was a large ground transport parked out front emitting the _worst_ noise while a pair of frail, graying Users paced among a collection of containers. Even with creative driving on Clu’s part, they were running a few minutes late by the timestamp.

“Kevin! You’re late!” one, the female, said, stomping up to the stopped ‘cycle as Clu deactivated it.  “We’ve been over this, dear. You’re not going to change our minds.

“Who’s your friend?” she added as Jalen slowly unwound from his awkward position riding passenger. He was really too tall for it, but there hadn’t been any batons handy.

“This is—a colleague,” Clu said, sitting up straighter as a bolt of that same, otherworldly inspiration hit. The Users were running late for a _flight_ , mass transport that tagged in as something _vaguely_ like a Solar Sailer. “Sorry, his flight was delayed, and I had to pick him up.”

“Greetings,” Jalen said, smiling shyly and poking Clu _hard_ in the side. The sarcastic ping that usually accompanied the gesture was oddly absent, and Clu felt his polite smile slipping. _No_ _connection_ in User-space. He’d forgotten for a moment.

“Kevin, Kevin, Kevin,” the woman said, shaking her head sadly, “You’re _retired_ from Encom. _Try_ to remember that.”

“Of course,” Clu said. Agreeing with everything was probably the safer course. Who _were_ these Users? What was their relationship to Flynn?

“Sam’s already up,” said the other User, who joined them as the situation with the transport and the containers seemed to work itself out. “I’d have thought you’d manage to be back at a decent hour last night.”

“Shush,” the woman said, poking her-- _counterpart?--_ much as Jalen had done. “This poor boy’s flight was delayed. Look at him, he’s jetlagged.” Jalen was, indeed, still drooping a little thanks to an incomplete rest-cycle. Clu himself was still too jittery to make the attempt even if his own uptime was starting to run into the ridiculous. Maybe once they caught a break and the situation started making _sense_.

“Who the hell is this?” the unfamiliar man said, peering a little more closely. Clu slid between them, breaking the User’s line of sight.

“A colleague,” Clu said firmly, “He’s staying with me until he gets settled.” As good an explanation as any.

“Don’t go letting yourself get distracted again! Sam needs his _father_ , not some corporate minders,” the man said, poking Clu in the chest. “Past time we went back to Florida.”

“We’ll still be a phone call away,” the woman said as the transport’s noise started up again. “You’ll do _fine_. I know you remember how to do this.”

“School let out last Friday so don’t try packing him off tomorrow!”

“Jet’s coming over on Wednesday. _Don’t_ let him smuggle in horror movies. Sam was up all night after the _Pet Sematary_ incident.”

“And for God’s sake don’t keep letting that boy put sugar on his cereal! He’ll get diabetes at this rate!”

“You promised last night to take him to the arcade.”

“We’ll call when we’re back at the condo. There’s dinner in the freezer.”

“Try not to survive off nothing but take out!”

“We love you. Be good. _Call._ ”

The confusing barrage of orders broke off into a pair of hasty hugs, and before Clu could quite parse what _happened_ they were gone. The transport took off down the quiet residential street and turned the corner before numbed calculation dictated that he should probably _attempt_ to wave goodbye.

“What was that?” Jalen asked into the quiet that followed.

“Users,” Clu said, shaking his head and closing his eyes to try and clear his processes. The confusing pair was gone, at least. They had intimated that Sam_Flynn was still in the residence and active. There went any hopes of dredging more data and trying to put together a _plan_ before he had to complete the charade in earnest. There were… some rather _intense_ memory-associations with Sam that he had inherited from Flynn, even before the dependent-User dominated more and more of the Creator’s time and processing capabilities. Sam was _crucial_ to the success of the switch. He needed _more time_.

Jalen’s hands were warm on his arms, the point of contact the only evidence that the ISO was _there_.

“We can do this. You managed a good cover story. We’ll go with that… I can be from some other User system in case I miss cultural cues,” Jalen said softly, touching his forehead to Clu’s.

“Right,” Clu said, blindly feeling for the ISO’s arms. “I wish I could sense you.”

“Me too. But if we’re just colleagues…”

“I know. Give me a micro,” Clu said with a sigh. It felt like it took longer to actually disengage and re-open his eyes. The door to the residence was still standing half-open, and a pair of eyes and a curly mop of hair were peering outside. Jalen noticed it just as Clu did, judging by the sudden tension in the ISO’s frame.

“Sam,” Clu said, taking a tentative step towards the User. He was terribly _small_ compared to the others, which didn’t make _sense_ since Sam_Flynn’s compile date was only a few cycles after _Clu’s_.

The door opened fractionally further, some tangled calculation clear in the small User’s expression. He didn’t seem to like what he saw very much.

“Where are grandma and grandpa?” Sam asked.

“They left to go back to Florida,” Clu said slowly.

“Who’s that?”

“This is Jalen. He’ll be working with me for a little while.”

“I thought you said you had to go work on the Grid with Clu,” Sam said, eyes narrowing.

“I did. I also had to pick Jalen up from his flight,” Clu said, trying another step. Jalen stayed with the ‘cycle, wisely keeping out of the conversation.

“Are we still going to the arcade?”

“Yes.” He could probably endure a quarter-millicycle of the place if he could figure out how to turn down the music.

“Same team?”

“If you want.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Clu _knew_ the instant before the small User’s expression turned fearful and then shuttered. Sam _shrieked_ and slammed the door. Clu got there a few moments later, but the locking mechanism was engaged.

“Keys!” Jalen tossed them over as he jogged the distance between. Five tries before Clu found one that worked on the door. Sam was nowhere to be seen.

“I’ll go left,” Jalen said, motioning toward a hallway branching out from the entrance. “This is an open plan. He has to be hidden in a side room.”

Clu nodded, taking the door on the right. It led into a small bedroom, strewn all over with models of things from the Grid. Lightcycles, figures frozen in the act of playing Disk Wars… there was even a massive poster on the wall dedicated to Tron, though it was impossible to figure out exactly who was being depicted. It didn’t quite have the same feeling of encroaching entropy that followed Flynn around. Maybe the small User’s room? It would explain why he seemed to know about the Grid.

“Sam?”

It was _too soon_ for this to be over. There was too much wrong with the Grid and no way Flynn could have even gotten to assess all of it. Sam was his key to _more time_.

“What did you do with Dad?” The muffled voice was coming from under the bed. Clu breathed a sigh of relief. This could potentially be salvaged.

“Your father is fine,” he said, crouching to look at what the small User could possibly be doing down there. “He’s in Tron Ci— _ow_!”

Sam was under the bed, all right. Clutching something small and faintly glowing to his chest and with a _club_ in his other hand. A club that the small User promptly _swung_ at him, catching him just above the eye. The blow didn’t have the power it _could_ have with the awkward vector, but it made stars burst across Clu’s vision.

“I want Dad back _right now_!”

“I can’t do that.”

“I’m gonna call the cops!”

“How are you going to do that? You’re stuck under the bed!”

“I’ll scream really loud!”

“That’s not going to work,” Clu said, sitting up and rubbing at the sore spot. He had a fresh headache starting up behind his eyes.

“What did you do with Dad?”

“Flynn is _fine_. He’s in the Grid.”

The club snaked out and poked Clu in the leg. The administrator lunged for it, but Sam’s reflexes were impressively fast and the club disappeared again. Jalen poked his head into the room.

“I heard yelling and assumed you found him,” the architect said mildly.

“Your evil plan won’t work, doppelgangers!”

“He’s under there. Careful, he’s armed,” Clu said, making a face as Jalen grabbed his hand away from the sore spot and _tsked_.

“I am going to tell Tron, and he is going to make fun of you forever,” Jalen said, “Is your render supposed to discolor like that?”

“You know Tron?” Sam piped up.

“Of course we know Tron,” Clu said.

“I didn’t ask you! You’re the bad guys! You kidnapped Dad!” Out came the club again for another poke. Clu didn’t even bother trying to deflect it that time. Instead, he just motioned to the bed and threw up his hands. Jalen, _glitch_ him, snickered.

“We know Tron,” Jalen said soothingly, “He’s helping Flynn right now.”

“Helping him escape?” Sam said hopefully.

“Helping him fix things,” Jalen said firmly.

“Fix things?”

“There are some problems that only a User can solve,” Clu said, bitterness that he couldn’t help in his tone, “Problems that are destroying the Grid.”

“You’re a doppelganger! You just want to take his place!” Sam poked him with the club again, but Clu managed to snag it.

“My _system_ was going to _fall apart_! All the programs looking to _me_ for guidance would have _died_!” Clu snarled, pulling the club and the small User attached to it out from under the bed. Sam _squeaked_ and scrambled back. Jalen placed a calming hand on Clu’s arm, and with a shaky breath the administrator set the club aside out of Sam’s reach.

“Flynn needs time to fix what’s wrong with our home. To _save_ it,” Jalen said while Clu tried to get his temper back under control. “Clu is going to cover for him until it’s safe for everyone again and the problems are solved. That’s _all_.”

“Why didn’t Dad say anything about it?”

“He didn’t know how bad it was. By the time he came to us again, it was an emergency.”

“He glitching well _knew_. He just didn’t want to _listen_ ,” Clu muttered.

“ _Shush_ , you,” Jalen said with a poke to emphasize the point.

“You still _kidnapped_ him,” Sam said suspiciously, “He woulda _told_ me! He said we might go to the Grid together someday! You don’t _say stuff_ like that if there’s trouble!”

 _Stalemate_. Jalen shrugged at Clu, clearly lost himself by his expression. They _needed_ Sam’s cooperation now—the small User could undoubtedly summon others if given the chance. Neither of them could afford the kind of time and attention away from their primary mission it would take to keep Sam contained. And Clu found he didn’t _want_ to consider the option anyway. He wasn’t sure if it wasn’t potentially some emotional or memory bleed from Flynn, but he _liked_ the small User. Sam was clever enough to figure out the deception in a handful of microcycles and take appropriate measures, and bold enough to face down a confrontation without giving in to fear. He would make a _good_ co-conspirator if their mission here dragged out as long as Clu feared it might.

“Sometimes people lie to themselves,” Clu said as the tense silence stretched on, “And then they believe it, and tell all sorts of lies to others because to them it’s the truth.”

“Are you calling my dad a _liar_?”

“Just to himself.”

“That’s mean,” Sam said, though there was a note of uncertainty in his voice.

“Yes, it is. But it happens sometimes,” Clu said.

Quiet returned. Jalen was watching him closely, head tilted a little in curiosity. Clu just listened, struggling for simple, calm breathing without the hum of the Grid around to hear. Just a faint pulse— _heartbeat_ —and the breathing of the people around him.

“So _you’re_ Clu,” Sam said after a while longer, “Like, really _Clu_. A _program_.”

“Yes. And this is Jalen. He’s an ISO. Did Flynn tell you about the ISOs?”

“He said he was gonna write his book about them,” Sam said, “And they’re gonna change the human condition.”

“I don’t know about that. But the ISOs all live in the Grid too,” Clu said.

“And you and Dad built the Grid together,” Sam said.

“Yes. Only something is wrong with it and it’s been breaking. When things break, it puts all the programs in danger and destroys the places where they live. Sometimes we’re lucky and people only get hurt. Sometimes we’re _not_ and people die. Tron and Jalen and I and a whole lot of other programs have been trying to determine what’s wrong and fix it, but we _can’t_. We don’t have permission to access enough information or change what needs to be changed. Only _Flynn_ can do that.”

“And that’s why you kidnapped him.”

Clu sighed. Honesty seemed the only direction left to try. “Yes.”

“Is Dad coming back?”

“When the Grid is safe again, yes. We have communications open with another ISO named Radia. I’ll show you later. It’s not quite time to call her yet.”

“Can I talk to Dad?”

“If he’s near the communications hub when we call. It’s very hard to talk to your world from the Grid.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Flynn told _us_ it was impossible, but he figured it out when you were compiled.”

“Compiled?” Sam peeked out from under a trailing blanket. “What’s that mean?”

“When you were made,” Clu said.

“When I was _born_?”

“If that’s what you call it.”

“And til the Grid is fixed you’re gonna be Dad’s doppelganger. And pretend to be him. And stuff,” Sam said, propping his chin on his hand. The small, glowing object clutched close was revealed to be a tiny model of Tron, circuits lit cool blue. Sam was looking at it meditatively.

“That’s our plan.”

“What did Tron say about it?”

“He helped us. It’s his function to protect the programs in the system and fight for the Users. Tron wouldn’t let us do anything he thought would threaten that. He’s watching over Flynn now and keeping him out of trouble.” Tron _very much_ wouldn’t let them get away with anything that might be construed as a threat. Clu pressed a hand to his throat, remembering the _last_ time Tron objected to his plans.

“Tron _helped_ you?”

“Yes. We need Flynn to save our world.”

“Okay,” Sam said, sighing. The lights on the model of Tron went out as the small User stopped clinging to it so hard.

“Okay?”

“I’ll help you too. ‘Cause Tron is. And ‘cause letting a bunch of people die is _not cool_ ,” Sam said.

“Thank you, Sam Flynn,” Clu said formally. Sam favored him with an uncertain smile and finished crawling out from under the bed.

“I’m gonna finish breakfast! Helping save the world is hard work!”


	3. Perspective

“Kevin, it’s so nice to see you _finally_ got your life back together,” Hardington practically oozed as he passed Clu on the way out of the conference room. The administrator fixed him with a cold look that was mostly wasted on the executive’s retreating back.

That had to have been the _longest_ quarter-millicycle of his runtime. It was a relief to walk back to Flynn’s office—even if said office was a mess of mysterious parts, papers, and models that made him twitch just to look at. Had the User never heard of _basic organization_? Still… the board meeting on Flynn’s schedule had gone smoothly enough. They were considerably similar to administrative meetings back _home_ , though with a great deal more posturing and self-aggrandizement and a great deal less actually _getting things done_. Clu could appreciate now why Flynn had always spoken of the Encom board in negative terms.

Sam was almost exactly as Clu had left him when the office door finally, _blessedly_ swung shut behind him. He was still interacting with something on Flynn’s terminal and occasionally spinning around in the office chair. The small User had insisted on coming along and spent the hour before the meeting briefing Clu on the various members of the board… or at least their names and faces, since he was pretty sure Sam’s opinions on their personal hygiene and intelligence were mostly emotional. It had been a _little_ useful—he’d managed to avoid any slips around Alan Bradley, who was almost _certainly_ Tron’s beloved Alan-One given their identical appearance.

Alan-One who had been giving Clu little curious looks throughout the entire meeting, which meant a strategic retreat from the Encom offices was probably a good idea. No need to calculate probabilities on what _that look_ led to.

“Meeting’s over. Time to go,” Clu said since Sam was absorbed in whatever he was doing on the terminal and giggling to himself.

“I’m hunting for food! Gimmie a minute!” Sam said, flashing Clu a grin.

“How can you be hunting for food? You haven’t moved from that spot,” Clu said, frowning and striding over to the desk to see what was so fascinating about the terminal. He’d had _more_ than enough of _actually_ procuring User-style food to know that it wasn’t nearly that simple. If he never had to hear the fire alarm go off again it would be too soon.

“It’s a game. It’s totally lame ‘cause they have it at school, but you can do funny things,” Sam said, gesturing at the vaguely person-shaped object in the middle of the screen. A flicker of something that looked sort of like a squirrel danced across the screen, and Sam delightedly hammered at the keyboard and made the badly-rendered person spray projectiles everywhere. All of which missed the animal-like thing.

“Anyway, you’re supposed to shoot the animals for food. But you gotta hit them. That’s kinda hard,” Sam said as the screen reset to a simple list menu and status readout. Clu frowned as he read over it.

“This date is over a hundred cycles… years ago.”

“Yeah, the game’s supposed to be educational. But you can mess with it and buy ammunition instead of clothes and stuff like that.”

“Why? I thought the point of games was to _win_.”

“Nah, the _point_ is to have fun. Winning’s the funnest thing sometimes but not all the time,” Sam said.

“Whatever you say. You’re done, time to go.”

“Let me _exit_ , jeeze,” Sam said with an extravagant roll of his eyes. He tapped in a few more commands and pulled a data hex from the terminal’s read slot. “Now where’s the envelope..”

“Aw, _c’mon_ Tron, couldn’t this have waited until _after_ intramurals? My team’s gonna lose _so hard_.” Both Sam and Clu froze at the unfamiliar voice coming from the hall. And…

“Tron?” Clu echoed, feeling disoriented again. Tron was back in the Grid, babysitting Flynn and advising Radia on dealing with the uneasy factions. So many cycles together and Clu was sure he’d have been introduced to Tron’s other friends by now… Though… could Encom have access to another system portal? Did a _mirror_ stalk the office’s halls?

“Oh crap not good,” Sam said, hopping out of the chair with the data hex still in hand. “Yeah we gotta _go_ that’s Uncle Alan and Uncle Roy!”

“What?” Clu turned a blank look on Sam just as the door burst open and two Users tumbled in. Alan was easily recognizable—he’d shed the suit jacket from the meeting but was otherwise unchanged. His companion was much less formally attired and outfitted with a helmet and—

“Behind me,” Clu said, grabbing a protesting Sam and pulling him to safety at the first glimpse of the identity disk in the User’s hand. It was an unfamiliar style, but the central swirl flashed blue in the light clearly enough. Trust _Tron’s_ User to somehow _know_ …

“ _Just_ what I was talking about,” Alan said, eyes narrowing in that horribly familiar predatory expression. Sam was squirming behind him, trying to break hold and dash out, but if nothing else he had to make sure his small ally wasn’t caught in any crossfire. _He_ was unarmed; the master disk had disappeared when they’d manifested.

“Kevin, man, you feeling okay?” the armed User said, looking lost.

“Never better. Was there something you needed?” The words were a little brittle, eyes still trained on the disk, but it was a fairly reasonable facsimile of calm. Better than the last time he’d been disarmed and held against his will by Giles and his glitching band of lunatics. The Users looked sane. They could probably be reasoned with.

“Nah, but Alan seems to thi—hey!” The identity disk was plucked from the User’s hands by Tron’s User, who looked at it speculatively and advanced a couple of steps, poised to throw. Clu tensed and backed them up an equal number of steps, calculating escape vectors in a hurry. He _might_ be able to fight free—Alan-One couldn’t possibly have the hundreds of cycles of combat experience Tron had—but there was the matter of the companion-User and _Sam_. Who he still had to guard.

“Clu,” Sam hissed, tugging at his pocket when the squirming did nothing. “ _Clu!_ ”

“Where is Kevin Flynn?” Alan said.

“I don’t know what you—“

“It’s a Frisbee! It can’t hurt you!” Sam said.

“A _what_?” Alan-One’s darkening expression and the other User’s deepening confusion meant he’d probably said the thought aloud. _Deletion._

“Whoa, hey, Kevin, Alan, what the hell?” The curly-haired User pulled his helmet off, scratching his head.

“It’s a _toy_!” Sam said, poking Clu’s side with his very pointy elbows. The administrator finally let the small User go, and Sam immediately planted himself in the middle of the standoff, glaring at his elders.

“And since I refuse to think that Kevin Flynn can’t recognize a toy, _what did you do with him_?” Alan-One growled, still holding the disk in familiar guard stance.

“When did today become _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_?”

“I will explain,” Sam said loftily. “But Uncle Alan, put the Frisbee _down_.”

“No. Sam, come here.”

“No way!”

“I mean seriously, I’m not gonna go back to my desk and find a creepy alien pod waiting for me, am I?”

“Sam, this isn’t a game. Come here.”

“I don’t wanna and you can’t make me!”

“I gotta be dreaming or something. And hey, if _Kevin’s_ been body snatched then who are _you_?”

“Would all of you please _shut up_?!” Clu barked, voice pitched to cut through even the emergency chatter in Operations . Miraculously, all three Users shut up, staring at him with a mixture of confusion, apprehension, and a dash of smug courtesy of Sam.

“No, you aren’t _dreaming_. No, I haven’t _done anything_ to Kevin Flynn. Put the disk _down_ and I’ll attempt to explain.”

“This better be good,” Alan-One said with a glare, though he did finally set the disk aside on top of one of the many precarious stacks of paper in the office. Clu let out a breath, calculations slipping out of emergency mode.

“It’s _totally_ good,” Sam said, grinning. Clu had the sudden, irrational urge to call Jalen back at the residence and let the _ISO_ try to explain as he took a deep breath and tried to order his thoughts.

“How much did Flynn tell you about fighting the MCP?” Clu finally said. Better to begin at the beginning, especially with the blank looks Alan-One and the other User—Roy, Sam had called him—were giving him. The tale of almost four hundred cycles was surprisingly short in telling, stripped down to the most salient details. When it was over, the two Users looked pensive and Sam was fidgeting with the data hex.

“Show us,” Alan-One finally said, decisively. “Show us this entry point of yours. Then I’ll decide if I believe you.”

“All right.” The agreement was easy but it didn’t erase the dread running through Clu’s processes.

The logistics of transporting three Users and one program to the arcade, minus the use of the ‘cycle to avoid a protracted argument with Alan-One, had necessitated calling in another User named Lora for the use of her van. Lora who looked between them all, proclaimed that she did not want to know the details at the moment, and left the keys in Alan’s possession. It was probably lucky that the arcade was closed during the day on weekdays—the group of them probably looked odd as they trouped inside and Clu led them to the box that hid the access to their entry point.

“Why am I not surprised?” Alan-One murmured as the box swung out on the hidden stairwell. Sam gasped in delight and almost took off running if he hadn’t been simultaneously grabbed by both Clu and Roy. Instead they filed down at a more sedate pace, the workspace much as Clu and Jalen had left it only a little better illuminated after the light switch was located.

“That’s the laser prototype!” Alan said, going immediately for the construction laser as Roy advanced on the terminal. Clu hung back with Sam, watching them flit around.

“What the hell would Kevin need the digitization laser for? Didn’t that project eventually get _scrapped_?” Roy said, frowning over at him.

“When her group couldn’t make copies of scanned items? Yes,” Alan said, checking over the laser’s status readouts much as Jalen had done.

“It’s how he gets in,” Sam said quietly.

“Gets in where?”

“The Grid.”

“Then…” Alan-One’s face went distinctly pale as his attention swung back to Clu. “It’s all real.”

“So programs are people on the inside? Cool,” Roy said, grinning a bit as he knelt and started poking around under the terminal. “Hey, here we go. Found the case.”

“Case?” Clu said, grateful to turn his attention away from the User’s half-crashed expression.

“For the computer. It’s a pretty big mother, too,” Roy said, patting one of the terminal’s large legs and making a face when his fingers came away covered in grey fuzz. “Figures. Flynn’s been forgetting to dust, too.”

“The system?” Clu said, feeling his voice crack uncomfortably. But… it was so _small_.

“Um. Yeah. Sorry,” Roy said, looking chagrined. “This is what all computers look like on our end. A box and peripherals so we can interact. Um. _Crap_. Forget I said anything.”

“My whole world is a _box_ to you,” Clu said, realization making him weak-kneed. Oh, it all made _sense_ now. Terrible, _perfect_ sense.

“Hey, wait! It’s not like that!” Roy was backpedaling. “I mean, until you came out here nobody knew!”

“Dad knew,” Sam said. “He got in and fought the MCP and met Tron!”

“ _All_ systems are like the Grid?” Alan-One said, oddly looking as sick as Clu felt. All the lives in his hands… the cities and power flows… the exhilaration of storms and the crushing despair of the sickened Sea… and it was _all a box_. Nobody knew. It was like a joke, only his whole _existence_ was the punchline.

“Encom’s was. Then Dad built the Grid special. He was gonna show everyone when it was ready,” Sam said. “But… I’ve never been in. Dad always kept saying _soon_.”

“And so he’s…”

“ _Inside_. Fixing the system. I bet if we all helped it would go faster,” Sam said. The Users started all talking at once again, but Clu tuned it out. _A box_. The thought kept chasing itself. No wonder the basics in the system never mattered. Why he never mattered. Why _would_ they? If the box was broken Flynn could just _get another box_. Maybe if the ISOs hadn’t walked from the Sea, he’d have done just that. Encom was full of similar, if smaller, terminals. The logic worked. The irony of it was hard to swallow—maybe it was _only_ by virtue of the ISOs that any of them were still running.

A warm hand on his arm broke Clu out of the madly circling calculations. He looked down, surprised to note the fine tremor running through his arm. It was Sam, looking up at him seriously.

“It’ll be okay.”


	4. The Witching Hour

The clock on the nightstand read 2:37, Bostrum-green light washing weirdly over the quiet bedroom. Much as it had the last five times Clu opened his eyes to check the time, in nearly-perfect ten minute increments, sleep continued to elude him. As it had since the revelation—had it only been a couple of days ago?—that his world was a lot _smaller_ than he’d thought. He knew the lack of real downtime was starting to degrade his performance, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to _care_.

Probably he should give up, get out of bed, and sneak a look at the data the Users had been working with from the Grid since the afternoon. Do something useful, check up on his suffering system and make sure none of them were simply planning on extracting Flynn and replacing the _box_. But Jalen was plastered against his back, even, quiet breathing like a soothing metronome even if it tickled the back of his neck, and he didn’t want to wake the ISO. Jalen hadn’t taken the news any better than he had, and if this was _finally_ the first sleep Jalen had allowed himself _Clu_ wasn’t going to be the one to interrupt it. Instead he watched the clock blink, running the time conversions in his head and wondering how long they would have at _home_ before the kill command with their registry entries on it was issued.

The creak of the door almost made Clu jump out of his render. Peering over his shoulder, he saw Sam’s familiar curls silhouetted against the night-light in the hall. The movement must have been some kind of signal to the small User. Sam slipped into the room, closing the door behind him, and crept close.

“Can’t sleep,” Sam whispered.

“’s catching,” Jalen said sleepily, the words half-lost in Clu’s shoulder. So much for that.

“Can I stay with you guys?” Sam said, giving Clu a beseeching look. He sighed and nudged Jalen back so there was room for all of them. Sam promptly wormed under the blanket. Clu went back to watching the clock blink.

“Tell me a story?”

“What kind of story?” Clu said, blinking at Sam, who was staring fixedly at the ceiling.

“Dad tells me stories about the Grid. And Tron fighting the MCP. Tell me stories like that. I bet you have some cool ones.”

“There was the time Tron cheated at lightcycles,” Jalen said impishly, shifting so that he could rest his chin on Clu’s shoulder. Clu rolled his eyes.

“Tron always cheats at lightcycles. That’s why he never enters the tourneys.”

“No way. Tron never cheats!”

“If by never you mean always,” Jalen said, snickering a little.

“Tell me a _cool_ story. And no kissyface in it,” Sam said, glaring. Of course it had been just Clu’s luck that the _one_ kiss he stole from Jalen this entire affair, their first moment alone after the news had been shared and processed, had been witnessed and _commented on_ by the tiny Flynn. He had pronounced it extremely gross and moaned about being scarred for life until Roy, who had been tasked with taking care of them by a scowling Alan-One, bribed Sam into shutting up with pizza.

“Tell him about the tank,” Jalen said brightly.

“ _No_ ,” Clu said, feeling his face heat.

“Tank?”

“Oh yes. We flew a tank once,” Jalen said.

“We _crashed_ a tank. Besides, I can’t tell that one.”

“Why not?” Sam said, pouting.

“There’s kissing in it,” Jalen said, laughing softly.

“How _much_ kissing?”

“I’m not telling that one,” Clu said firmly.

“I’ll tell it. And there’s just one.”

“Can’t you just skip the kissing part?” Sam said, turning pleading eyes on the ISO.

“No. It’s _my_ story anyway. Do you want to hear it or not?”

“ _Ew_. Fine. But only because you flew a tank.”

“Crashed it,” Clu said, biting his lip when Jalen poked a ticklish spot with a pointed glare. Sam rolled his eyes with an extravagance that Tron would probably envy and settled, watching Jalen expectantly.

“ _Whichever_. Anyway… it started at a time much like now. The Grid never totally shuts down, but there are certain millicycles where more programs are on downtime than not. And that millicycle happened to be one in which the Administrator’s job is to check up on items that the Creator made and placed in long-term storage. Vehicles, mostly, like recognizers and tanks… things that were bound to be a big temptation to the rebel factions who were angry about our attempts to integrate ISOs and basics together into a unified society.

“Naturally Clu didn’t _tell_ anyone where he was going, and I was curious, so I followed after him…”

\---

The trouble with being bound back-to-back with Clu was that it made Tessler keep circling them like a demented bit until Jalen was starting to get dizzy trying to keep an eye on the rebel general. And he needed to—Clu wasn’t in much shape to do it after the hit he’d taken to his dock when he refused to give up the stop codes for the _Regulator’s_ self-destruct sequence. The self-destruct sequence that was ticking down serenely oblivious to the problem, reminding them every few microcycles that the giant carrier was indeed going to derezz itself and all contents in the near future. Discreet little pings transmitted through the circuits on their hands told Jalen that Clu was finally starting to come back online, though. Not that it did anything about _Tessler_.

“You two have managed to make a real nuisance of yourselves,” Tessler said finally, and Jalen had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop the cutting words that wanted to boil up at the pronouncement. _They_ weren’t the ones who had tried to steal the carrier so they could _bomb Arjia_.

“Still, I suppose a wing of recognizers isn’t a bad haul. Too bad you won’t be around to see how they’re implemented.”

“Can you _please_ spare me the clichéd villain dialogue? You’re starting to sound like Giles,” Jalen said, feeling an almost vicious pleasure when Tessler’s face contorted at the mention of his just as glitched ISO counterpart. A bright-lit gauntlet slammed into the bulkhead not far from Jalen’s head, Tessler’s weapons functions at work, and he held a little tighter to Clu’s hands to keep the reflexive stab of panic down. Intimidation, nothing more.

“Jumpy thing, aren’t you?” Tessler said, dark amusement making the words almost a purr as the gauntlet retracted. “But you’re right. I’m going on and on and you have deresolution to be getting to. Have fun with that.”

And then the crimson-lit rebel was gone in a swirl of his cloak, allies skittering after quickly as the _Regulator’s_ command/control functions announced only ten microcycles to self-destruct.

“That could have gone better,” Jalen murmured to no one in particular, feeling Clu twitch against his back as diagnostics finished running and he fully rebooted. A little embarrassed to be caught prying, Jalen let the Administrator’s hands go, pulling back the thread of energy and awareness that he had been using to monitor.

“Tessler?” Clu said a few nanos after the last little waking-shudders had passed.

“Left. Self-destruct is in about nine micros,” Jalen said, squirming as he tried to locate the source of the lightrope binding them together.

“Plenty of time,” Clu said, “I’ve got the source. Hang on.”

A few clicks and a buzz of forcefully redirected energy later, and the hacked source device fell, burnt out, to the ground. Jalen sighed in relief, flexing his fingers as feeling started coming back to his arms. Clu was first on his feet, already tapping commands into a nearby console by the time Jalen joined him. It didn’t look good—error messages were blooming fast under Clu’s fingertips. Tessler must have locked out the system when he couldn’t get the stop codes.

“Figures.. if he can’t have this, no-one can,” Jalen said in disgust.

“I can’t crack the command console in time,” Clu said, shaking his head. “Time to _go_.” He suited words to action by grabbing Jalen’s wrist, and only his much longer legs kept him from tripping as Clu broke into a run for the nearest hanger. Six microcycles left, command/control pinging another couple of reminders as the hanger doors obediently whooshed open before they could both careen into them.

The place was stripped. The recognizers were gone from their cradles, unsurprising, but even the cases of lightjet batons and float harnesses had been raided. The only thing left in the hanger was a handful of _tanks_.

“He really didn’t want us getting away, huh?” Jalen said, trying to swallow down the knot of nervous panic that was threatening to overwhelm. He wasn’t optimized for security, and the function he’d chosen didn’t _have_ calls to combat routines… why had he snuck onto the carrier after Clu? It was so _stupid_ and if he wasn’t about to derezz Radia would kill them _both_.

“Maybe the shields…” Clu murmured, completely ignoring anything but the situation at hand, and then snagged Jalen’s arm to drag him bodily for the nearest tank. The ISO found himself shoved into the driver’s position while the Administrator closed the hatch and started fiddling with the gun controls. Of course. Tanks had energy shielding. The two microcycle warning sounded, muffled by the layers of code that made up the vehicle.

“Deletion!” Clu swore, hitting the gunner’s controls even as the carrier shuddered with the beginning of the self-destruct.

“What?” Jalen said, almost a squeak, but processes caught up even as mouth engaged. _Glitch and delete it._ The tank was--

“This is an old model! Kinetic shielding isn’t on this thing, much less a crash bubble,” Clu said, running his fingers back through his own hair and giving it a yank as he growled to himself.

“This can’t be it.” The ISO snagged the edges of the pilot’s console and hauled himself into position even though he had to bend awkwardly to do it.

“There’s no way the structure can take the kind of force falling is going to generate,” Clu said.

“Then we can mitigate the force,” Jalen said. “This thing still has decent weapons, right?”

“Standard load,” Clu said, and Jalen risked a glance behind to see the desperate fury start to dissipate.

“Then we can do this. Do you trust me?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Clu!”

“ _Yes_.”

The carrier groaned and shuddered, and Jalen’s words trailed off in a confused mixture of horror and wonder as the _Regulator_ started to shimmer out of existence around them. Almost too late, he hit the toggle that would release the tank from storage clamps. It slid along the hanger’s floor as the carrier began to list, the self-destruct obviously not that well beta-tested since it was happening in fits and starts. For once, Jalen could feel nothing but relief at the evidence the occasional shoddy work on the Creator’s part.

“This had better work,” Clu muttered, swiveling the gunner’s station and blowing the outer doors of the hanger without being asked. Jalen flashed him an unsure smile before swallowing and forcing himself to focus only on the readouts in front of him.

All the Alpha ISOs in the Grid had some sort of extra talent, an ability that truly blurred the lines between program and User. Radia’s was perhaps the most well-known and the most universally useful, but Jalen had one too. And, chewing on his lip, he let it take over, sinking his awareness purely into the lines and numbers of the Grid itself, _feeling_ the complicated equations of tank and ground and velocity and trajectory. Seeing exactly _how_ to tweak the formulas to get what he wanted, the forces and timings down to the electron-volt and the nanocycle.

And with a cough he started rattling off firing vectors. Paused. Recalculated. More vectors. Time stretched oddly, ticks of the system clock melting together into formless eternity, and he couldn’t spare focus to even properly hear his own voice. Too busy chasing the math, double-checking every vector plot before he trusted it to Clu. He could feel the numbers shifting, the code reluctantly reshuffling to see them to safety, error bars dwindling as he called another set of vectors. Closer and _closer_ …

Hitting the ground, though, _that_ he felt.

The tank sheared apart in a rippling wave of light, the heavy code smashing into blinding white voxels as it took the brunt of the landing. It didn’t have crash bubbles, but each position was in its own armored section and Jalen yelped as his was torn free and went bouncing across the rock of the Outlands to crash into a near-vertical outcrop. Awareness crashed back where it belonged, leaving the ISO stunned in the middle of the wreckage.

Overhead, he could see the last flickers of the _Regulator_ as it disappeared into bluish light, its energies returning to the system. It was actually kind of pretty. And breathing hurt enough to make stopping for a little bit a serious consideration—Jalen was pretty sure he had at least a few cracks in his surface render.

But it had _worked_.

“Jalen?”

Clu’s voice was a relief, too. He tried to answer, but nothing came out but a croak that didn’t carry.

“Jalen?!” The glassy sound of voxels skittering over rock heralded Clu’s arrival as the Administrator slid carefully down the sharp incline. The gunner’s position must have bounced farther. There was a hairline fracture spidering out from Clu’s hip that crackled farther as the other program settled, and now panic was written across his face as surprisingly gentle hands cupped Jalen’s cheek.

“Please be all right,” Clu said, linking his free hand with Jalen’s. That faint line of awareness was back, the damage that was being ignored almost a phantom ache in Jalen’s own leg. Conscious access implied _permissions_ , and for another microcycle all Jalen could do was stare and wonder when _that_ happened and why the idea made his circuits flare.

“Hi,” Jalen managed to whisper.

“You glitching lunatic,” Clu murmured back, worry and relief and something bright-warm washing over Jalen like a tide that stole the ISO’s retort. He grinned up at Clu instead, enjoying the his scowling and the relief that thrummed under it through the open connection. Felt the resolution flicker through Clu before the Administrator leaned in and pressed his lips to Jalen’s, demanding and insistent as bright-warm-worried spiked higher through them both, feelings echoed and re-echoed in synch as a flicker of power bounced between them. Felt Clu startle as the circuit between them closed with a rush, but it was surprisingly easy to snag him and reel him back in for another kiss, wonder and recognition filtering through the link for a delicious, timeless moment.

“Am I interrupting anything?”

Tron’s voice dragged Jalen back to himself even as his toes curled at Clu’s _growl_ when they pulled apart. The security program was standing half-leaning against the side of a light-runner, and now that Jalen was paying attention again he could see the tracery of blue light-trails sweeping the skies. Security sweeps. He looked up at Clu, taking in the fractures that armored gridsuit hadn’t been able to stop, hair sticking out in all directions, circuitry still glowing brighter than baseline even as they both reluctantly pulled back the data flowing between them.

_Worth it._

“Your timing is terrible,” Clu said, all ruffled dignity, and Jalen _laughed_.

\---

“Then what happened?” Sam said sleepily after Jalen’s words trailed off, and Clu glanced over to see Jalen’s face relaxed finally into sleep. Stifling a yawn of his own, Clu ruffled Sam’s hair despite the small User’s squeak of protest.

“Then Tron hauled us both back to Tron City and got back at us for worrying him by telling Radia on us,” he said, “And then she wanted to know all about the kissyface. In _detail_.”

“ _Gross_.”

“Then I think it’s time for you to go to sleep, hmm? Story over.” Sam grumbled a little to himself as Clu shifted his arm so Jalen leaning on him wouldn’t make it fall asleep. Linking hands was a natural next step, though permissions were nonexistent in the User world and it had been longer than a week since he had a sense of the ISO’s energy.

Sandwiched between the quietly snoring Sam and the warm weight of his counterpart, it was easy to lose track of the clock and finally slide into sleep.


	5. Lineage

“Finally!” Sam crowed in the middle of the game of Monopoly that he’d insisted they play while they waited for Roy to wake. Jalen had rolled his eyes partway through the explanation of the rules and left to go dig through one of the storage closets, murmuring something about discovering some drawings there the other day.

“What?” Clu said, looking up from organizing the haphazard pile of money Sam had given him for the “rent” for his imaginary property. Sam gave him a speculative look and then favored him with a grin—a grin with a gap in it that hadn’t been there at the beginning of the game.

“What happened to your teeth?” Clu said slowly.

“I lost a tooth!” Sam said, displaying the missing incisor on the palm of his hand. A wave of nausea hit Clu as he sat up, staring at the homeless tooth. Flynn was going to _derezz_ him for letting Sam get damaged, and that wasn’t getting into the uneasy truce he’d come to with _biology_.

“Are you all right? Should we wake Roy up?” Clu said, getting to his feet to get a little distance. The small User didn’t _look_ like he was in distress. Almost gleeful, in fact.

“Yes! He should see!” Sam said, favoring Clu with another grin that was bloody from the oozing gap. Bleeding didn't last forever, but Sam was small and how much was too much? Or was his self-repair failing, hence the lost tooth? That would be _catastrophic_ \-- Users were much more fragile than programs in a lot of ways and Sam was already prone to bruises and skinned knees from various misadventures.

 _"Roy!"_ Miraculously, Clu managed to keep the edge of panic out of the call as he strode for the guest bedroom where the User had been staying.

"What happened?" Jalen said, poking his head out of the closet he'd been raiding, surrounded by tubes full of paper and drafting equipment.

"Sam lost a tooth!"

"That is _disgusting_ ," Jalen said, nose wrinkling. "Is he all right?"

"I think so?"

"Whar?" Roy joined the conversation finally, slowly blinking reddened eyes as he peered at the two programs.

"Sam lost a tooth," Clu repeated for Roy's benefit.

"That's nice," Roy said with a yawn. "Can I go back sleep now?"

"That's all you have to say? That's _nice_?"

"You are adorable. Stop being adorable." The User grinned and ran his fingers through his hair with another jaw-cracking yawn. "Sam's the right age for it. 's perfectly normal."

"How is this normal? It just _fell out_!" Surely losing parts was just as serious for Users as for programs.

"Do Users _get_ cascade failures?" Jalen chimed in thoughtfully.

"Ok, ok. Look. Clu. _Breathe_. C'mon, deep breaths," Roy said, scrubbing his hands over his eyes and shuffling out of the bedroom. "Uncle Roy will make everything better and then you guys are going to let me sleep for at _least_ the next four or five hours, capiche?"

"What do you mean breathe? I have been breathing this whole time," Clu said, following Roy back out into the main room where Sam was examining the lost tooth curiously.

"Jalen! Uncle Roy! Look!" he crowed, dashing over to show it off.

"Gonna put it under your pillow?" Roy said with an indulgent smile as he looked over the tooth.

"Nope. It might get lost. I gotta find a box," Sam said.

"What does that have to do with anything? How are you going to fix him?" Clu said hotly, wondering why nobody else seemed worried. Well, all right, Jalen looked worried but he also looked nauseated.

“You _can_ fix him, right? That doesn’t seem like ignorable damage,” Jalen said, though he dutifully examined the tooth when Sam offered it.

"Right. Quick biology lesson. Humans get two sets of teeth because teeth don't grow. Everybody starts out with these little bitty teeth that are great for kids like Sam but way too small for an adult like me or Kevin. So starting when they're around Sam's age, they start trading out their first set for their second, permanent set that's sized for an adult's mouth. Sam will fix himself just fine-- the new tooth will pop into the gap in a couple weeks," Roy said, patting the two programs on the shoulder. "The whole process takes a few years, but adult teeth tend to come in bunches, so Sam might lose another baby tooth before the summer's out."

"That is a terrible system," Clu grumbled, feeling the knot of worry start to unwind in the face of the rational explanation. It wasn’t the first time _biology_ proved to be disgusting and horribly inefficient.

"Well, we didn't get the benefit of a creator with a plan or debugging, so we have to deal with it," Roy said with a laugh.

"Don't be such a wuss, Clu," Sam said, favoring him with a bloody grin. "I think I have another loose one."

"Eugh, Sam, go rinse or something," Clu said. He didn't need the little User _leaking_ all over the place. Jalen seemed to agree wholeheartedly, flashing Clu a pained look before retreating to the safety of the storage he was investigating. User bleeding was too much like a broken circuit and energy leaking, and Clu couldn’t blame him for being unable to stand the sight for too long. Not after the last time they’d dealt with broken circuits and the slow derezz they threatened.

"Why? Roy said it's normal! I look cool!"

“You do not. Jalen agrees with me.”

“You guys are _no fun_! Next you’ll want me to clean my room!”

"All right, you two. I'm going to go back to sleep. Four or five _hours_ , Clu. Remember that. And Sam, _don't_ torment your brother," Roy said, throwing his hands up as he turned back to tromp back to bed.

"Brother?" The term was unfamiliar, but it called up strong associations—love, family, duty. An unbreakable, lifelong bond, like taking a counterpart only related somehow to lineage. Like the bond Flynn and Sam shared… which was not for him.

“I don’t _want_ a brother! Clu’s not my brother,” Sam said, nose wrinkled even as he stared up at them with a speculative look.

“Sure he is,” Roy said, frowning as he looked at the pair of them.

“I’m no User,” Clu said, feeling a stab of bitterness that was almost shockingly strong. It was easy to forget, here, that he was a Basic and replaceable and would probably _be_ replaced for what he had done. The system, himself, none of that had ever been high on Flynn’s priority list. Not like Sam and these other baffling Users that Flynn tagged friends. It was a lucky break they were helping to stabilize and repair the Grid. Nothing more.

“All right. _Whoa_. Stop right there,” Roy said.

“It’s fine. I’m used to it,” Clu bit out, stalking back toward the main room before he did or said something inadvisable. Not for the first time, he wished there was a _connection._ Maybe, though, it was better Jalen was happily oblivious. Maybe especially if these were their last millicycles—days—together.

“Clu. C’mon.” Roy’s voice, modulated quiet. “Talk to me.”

“Talking is surprisingly ineffective,” Clu said, eyes fixed on the brightly-lit city-scape out the front window. It was a miracle that his tone was anything like even, not when he wanted to scream with how glitched _unfair_ it was. “I’ve _talked_ for cycles.”

“Seriously. What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Oh _yeah_. Pull the other one.” Another User idiom that he barely understood, but he could guess the intent clearly enough.

“A misidentification.”

“Not in my book.”

“Basics are just an extension of their User’s will. A function. Nothing more. I’m not like Sam.”

“And considering you look about ready to flip a table over it, I’d say that’s a load of shit,” Roy said, “And I should hope you’re not like Sam. The world does _not_ need two of Sam. Nothing interesting or shiny-looking would survive.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, and I still think you’re full of it. Did Kevin feed you this? Because if Kevin fed you this I’m gonna seriously reconsider the whole not-letting-Alan-punch-him stance I had going.”

“Why does Alan-One want to punch Flynn?” This was news to Clu, anyway.

“Because it turns out every computer we’ve ever put together is a world and every program we’ve written is a person, and Kevin _didn’t tell us_. I don’t know what Alan did, but I sure spent a lot of time making sure Ram’s backup disks were safe. We put a lot into writing our programs, but this is like the next level, you know? _Kids_. I never thought I’d be a dad.”

“It doesn’t change anything.”

“It changes everything.”

“Maybe for you.”

“Clu, seriously,” Roy said, and the User’s obvious worry was _too much_.

“It doesn’t change anything because I know I’ll be _derezzed_ the moment Flynn is out of the system,” Clu hissed, “Derezzed for a glitch, and don’t look at me and tell me this whole situation can’t be counted as a malfunction on my part. That’s why you’ve shut the both of us out since you said you’d help. Don’t deny it.”

“Clu, that’s not going to happen. That _isn’t_ what’s happening.”

“Don’t be like him, RKleinberg,” Clu said, deliberately reverting to Roy’s username, “Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Flynn’s the Grid’s creator and my User. He’d find a way and we both know _that_ , too.

“I knew what it would mean when... I know that stealing fire doesn’t end well for the thief.”

Roy was at a loss for words, it seemed, and Clu felt a tired sort of satisfaction at shutting him up. He’d had enough of User platitudes and User promises for a dozen runtimes, and he _had_ to count himself content trading his life for the system. Thinking otherwise just hampered his processing.

“No. _No_!” Strident denial made them both jump. Sam was standing in the doorway, watching from the hall, with a look of dawning horror on his face. “I take it back!”

“Sam!” _What had he heard?_

“I take it back!” Sam yelled before he ran for the small office Flynn kept at the residence, where they had set up the communications back to the Grid. The small User was setting the phone in the speaker cradle as Clu’s processes finally caught up and he made it into the office.

“Radia!” Sam practically wailed it, his face gone red and blotchy.

“Hello, Sam Flynn,” Radia said, her voice a little tinny as it always was through the speaker and the intense drain of holding the communication line open.

“Get me Dad,” Sam said.

“You don’t need to, Radia,” Clu said, hoping to do damage control,” It’s not an emergency.”

“It’s all right. He’s here for a change,” Radia said, amused, and Clu was about to apologize and hang up anyway and then Flynn’s voice was on the line.

“What’s up, kiddo?”

“I’m sorry! I take it back! I _want_ my brother. I don’t mind even if he’s bossy and makes me clean my room! Dad!” Sam said, looking so heartbroken it stole the half-formed demurral right from Clu’s processes.

“Dad, you _can’t delete my brother_!”


	6. Read Me

“Couldn’t sleep?” Jalen said, a quiet murmur in Clu’s ear as the ISO shifted and stretched from his normal place half-draped over the administrator. The sky was starting the daily ritual of the sunrise, soft colors of light bleeding over the more familiar dark dome of night. With a sigh, Clu shook his head.

“I kept waking up thinking Gamma Sector had been completely devoured by a fault,” he admitted, taking Jalen’s hand and loosely twining his fingers with those of his counterpart. Here there was no warm spark of circuits connecting, no open line of _here-alive-status-ok_ , but Jalen still squeezed back and pressed a kiss behind his ear. It was still strange, more than a week gone—a _cycle_ back in the system—and while this was a record number of down-cycles they’d been able to take together consecutively, the empty gap where his awareness of the system was yawned wider and wider in his processes to steal the contentment away.

“It’s always Gamma. Never Rho… or Theta! I’m starting to think you don’t care about my designs,” Jalen huffed, though Clu didn’t have to turn to picture the faint smile underneath the words.

“Yours aren’t the ones that kept breaking,” Clu said. Even if his sleep had been patchy and full of nightmares when he kept subconsciously looking for the system, he had no intention of moving right away. Moving just tended to summon Sam _faster_ for whatever manic distraction the beta-user was interested in next, and at least since the unfortunate morning of Sam’s lost tooth the other Users had started making more effort to keep them updated. A status update was also due that morning, and Clu needed to be at least _mostly_ functional for it despite the sleep deprivation.

“You say the nicest things,” Jalen snorted, a faint hint of teeth and breath along the outer edge of Clu’s ear as his counterpart through some small miracle managed to press _closer_. They hadn’t dared try the experiment, not with these User shells they barely understood, but it would be a lie to say the _temptation_ wasn’t there…

The slam of the front door was loud enough to echo through the house. Jalen groaned and fell back to what was theoretically his side of the bed.

“Lora wasn’t kidding when she said first thing,” Clu said dryly, but he couldn’t help snickering at the venomous look Jalen shot him.

“As if we weren’t interrupted enough at _home_ ,” Jalen said. Rubbing his hands over his face, the ISO made a show of flopping around and promptly burying his head in the pillows. Clu reached out to trace his fingertips along Jalen’s spine, finding the ticklish spot that corresponded to a tiny, fractal whorl in his circuitry just off his disk dock. He twitched with suppressed laughter and flailed back in Clu’s general direction.

“I’m getting up now,” Clu said, ducking a pillow. It was a narrow miss—Jalen’s short-lived stint as a Disk Wars champion hadn’t been a feigned stunt.

“Not even a few more micros?”

“No way Sam could have slept through that… or if he did, it won’t be for long. And you know how he is if we do anything other than hold hands,” Clu said, rolling his eyes at the recall. Sam was worse than Tron and Radia _combined_ when it came to _commentary_. Jalen finally resurfaced from the bedding, hair mussed and sticking out in all directions, and with a kiss to the top of Clu’s head promptly took over the bathroom. No _doubt_ to monopolize the shower.

It was a pity the cubicle was definitely too small for two.

Raking his fingers back through his hair, Clu smoothed it down as best he could, user-world entropy making it curl and stick out more like Flynn’s. The brush was somewhere—Sam had stolen it as a pretend microphone the night before while Roy had them beta-testing something called a home gaming console that was supposedly going to be all the rage. The racing game had been no lightcycle grid, and Sam’s color commentary had made it difficult to focus until Clu had finally surrendered one of the control modules to the bouncing User.

Making a mental note to make sure Sam helped pick up the living room, Clu dressed—an inefficient waste of more time—and finally put in an appearance. As predicted, Lora Bradley had arrived and was exchanging pleasantries with Roy, who had yet to go to sleep. Stacked next to her on the breakfast bar was a pile of books, all of them much thinner than the User work he’d found in Flynn’s offices and sporting what looked from a distance to be some rather violent colors. She had an air of self-satisfaction that already had the administrator nervous as he approached.

“Good morning,” he said politely as he searched out two glasses and the orange juice. While Clu could choke down the coffee Users seemed to prefer early in the day, he preferred _not_ to.

“Good morning, Clu,” Lora said crisply, much more alert than the yawning Roy. Worryingly, it looked like Roy was busy packing up whatever project kept him up all night this time rather than leaving everything in its customary scatter over the table.

“Lora’s gonna help watch Sam today,” Roy said, catching the look, “I’m needed at the arcade. But I’m tellin’ you, Lora, it’s not like he listens to _me_!”

“All you have to do is make sure he doesn’t try to touch the manual controls,” Lora said, sipping delicately at her cup of coffee, “Yori and her team need time to finish their analysis and generate a failure report… and given how long it’s been since the laser project was at Encom, I _also_ would like to make sure Tron and Yori have some time to get re-acquainted.”

“As above, so below?” Roy said, quirking an eyebrow at Lora as he finished shoving the last case of carefully packaged circuit boards into his backpack.

“Seems like it.”

Clu left one glass out for when Jalen finally appeared, taking the other as he sat across from Lora. It took a few moments to parse out the context of their conversation, but when he did, he smiled sadly.

“Tron missed her terribly… he never went out and said it, but the betas would always sigh and speculate about his lost love,” Clu said.

“You heard him, Roy. Make sure to pass that on to Alan,” Lora said, though her eyes softened a little at the confirmation.

“Will do. Wish me luck. I guess I’ll call collect if Alan gets us stuck inside after all.”

“He can wait for Monday! Honestly… the mark eight is a very delicate piece of equipment. David and Hal are good but they’re not miracle workers.”

“I still can’t believe you have your co-workers stealing from the federal government.”

“It’s not stealing if the equipment is already listed as decommissioned and destroyed,” Lora said, smirking into her coffee, and if this Yori was anything like her User Clu could see _exactly_ why Tron had stayed so faithful to his counterpart across hundreds of cycles. They would be a _matched set_.

“ _Right_. Good luck, Clu. You’re gonna need it,” Roy said, mock-saluting before he retreated out the door.

“Ignore him. He doesn’t know how the secret closet works,” Lora said, laughing a bit, and then she pushed the stack of books over to him. “I got these from the library for you and Jalen. Since I’m not sure _what_ , exactly, Kevin told you about how things work here and what you’ve been forced to rely on Sam for. Sam’s a sweetheart and very intelligent for his age, but trying to orient you all alone is a little much for a five-year-old.”

“Five and a half!”

“Fine. Five and a half,” Lora said, her smile going wide and warm as Sam poked his head up over the lip of the breakfast bar. Jalen wandered in not long after, foregoing a chair to stand behind and rest his chin on top of Clu’s head. Sam made a face but didn’t comment, instead pulling the top book off the pile of volumes with a noise of interest. The cover was splashed with stars, imaginary lines drawn between them in patterns that made the stars almost look like shapes.

With a pat to Sam’s head, Lora stood to move around the kitchen. A few moments later Sam had orange juice, too, but the small User was too engrossed in the book to notice.

With a dubious look back at the User, Clu took a few thin volumes off the pile. They had been to the library. It had been Sam’s first impulse, though the sheer volume of data in the User-archive with no particularly helpful search subroutine made it more confusing than enlightening. Lora had obviously had better luck if she had brought back so many books. Their purpose was clearer after he read some of the titles— _Supermarket!, Sneezy Louise, What if You Need to Call 911, My First Human Body Book, The Big Book of Why_. This was some kind of basic tutorial readme, and probably the exact thing Sam had been looking for. Mixed in with the books that served a fairly obvious tutorial function were slightly more mysterious ones— _The Giving Tree, Where the Wild Things Are, The Velveteen Rabbit_ —were they supposed to express some kind of cultural norms? There was even a luridly illustrated tome that advertised itself as a guide to Greek and Roman mythology, and while Clu wasn’t sure what mythology was, the word _Rome_ did catch his eye.

“Just how much of this is there? This is almost as long as the ISO orientation readme,” Jalen said, looking up from where he had started paging through _Frog and Toad are Friends_.

“This is just an armful from the children’s library, and that collection isn’t anywhere near the full number of picture-books,” Lora said. She had fetched the toaster down from the cabinet and was frowning into the freezer. “Well… I guess you don’t need the one about how supermarkets work after all. _Sam_! You will die of malnutrition if you eat nothing but chocolate chip waffles!”

“Nuh-uh. I know how to order takeout!” Sam flashed them a conspiratorial grin over the top of the book he was looking at.

“And Sam here is an excellent illustration of my next point.”

“ _Hey_!”

“Users— _humans_ —take anywhere between fifteen and twenty years to reach full maturity… that translates into about, what, a _thousand_ of your cycles? We don’t come pre-loaded with any general knowledge about our world and the societies we’re born into, so most of us spend several years being taught all of those things. The books I got you are a part of that. There are plenty of more advanced ones meant for older children or adults wishing to learn about various topics later in life, and all of us would be happy to make library runs for you,” Lora said, “But we all decided that if none of us are available, you should be able to get around on your own. _Especially_ if Kevin decides to follow through with some of his nuttier ideas, though obviously we’re all going to talk him out of the ones that put your people at risk.”

“I—thank you,” Clu said after a moment of looking unseeing at the pictures spread out on the surface in front of him.

“It’s the least we can do. Anyway… I do need to head home and check up on Jet. He’s scheduled back from his sleepover in another hour. I’ll swing by again in the afternoon,” Lora said, setting a plate with a warm waffle on it in front of Sam.

“Can you bring Jet? And the telescope? I wanna find the stuff in the book,” Sam said.

“Sure. I have a feeling Alan and Roy are going to be crashed at the arcade all night, anyway. There was talk of hardware upgrades when I left since installing the new laser will require a shutdown.”

“Upgrades?” Clu and Jalen both nearly chorused, attention fully on Lora who was hiding a giggle behind her hand. Jalen tensed a little, probably at the prospect of a shutdown, and Clu took his hand under the breakfast bar. If anyone could get a shutdown organized on short notice, it was Tron, Shaddox, and Radia… assuming Shaddox was back at his old function, but he had faith in Tron’s persuasive abilities. _Upgrades_ … how many times had he begged Flynn to expand the system’s power generation _alone_ since the ISOs began to rezz in and throw the balance off?

“I’ll bring them both this evening and you four can go over the catalogs. Building high-performance _computers_ was never _my_ fetish.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Clu said again, and Lora drained her coffee and patted him on the shoulder.

“We’ll help you take care of your world, Clu. I only wish we were able to do so sooner.”


	7. Standby

Clu growled under his breath as he loosened the knot on the tie he was wearing, overheated and exhausted from the board meeting that had dragged _on_ despite the fact that the air conditioning in Encom Tower was being mended. Perhaps it had been a deliberate choice on Hardington’s part—Clu had been having bad feelings about the executive for a while, and he was beginning to suspect that Hardington had a more _direct_ role in Encom’s losses to Dillinger Systems than anyone wanted to admit. He felt distantly sorry for Alan-One, who was stuck finishing out the day by implementing the quarter-growth plans that Clu had basically shoved down the board’s collective throats, but at least _his_ office was in the tiny chunk of the building that was successfully being cooled. Not even the ride to the arcade had helped, since the traffic had been fierce the whole way.

Thank goodness he wasn’t doing this alone. Jalen and Sam had gone to the arcade with Lora and Jet to await delivery of the laser, which Lora’s _minions_ —she _called_ them minions, anyway—were supposed to be producing while he was trapped in that damnable meeting. It was still strange to equate the Portal, a massive edifice in-Grid that surged with power, to the delicate construction laser that Lora had cradled in her arms and declared horribly _outdated_. It was less comforting to think that both she and Roy suspected the outmoded laser and its lack of control programs were a contributing factor to the spiraling faults… he had _learned_ that the ISOs weren’t to blame after all in the cycles following the Sea, but the _reminder_ …

He couldn’t do much of anything about it with the faults still crippling the system at regular intervals. Maybe Flynn would make some headway, once the system was repaired and upgraded. One thing at a time.

Clu snorted to himself as he slid the tie off and loosened the neck of the dress shirt that was sticking to him under the jacket. Alan-One had made him aware that it was out of character for “Flynn” to actually observe the executive dress code, but his first encounter with Hardington’s obvious discomfort with the idea of a Kevin Flynn who had it “together” was more than worth the ostentatious _fussiness_ of User clothes. The Arcade, at least, was pleasantly cool and all the machines were muted since the place was _closed_. Sam had pouted fiercely when informed he wasn’t going to be allowed to turn them all on and play video games all day, and thankfully it seemed the instructions had _stuck_ …

And there was a strange User lounging against the _Tron_ console, smoking a cigarette and keeping the hidden door to the basement lab open. A few feet away, blocking the aisle up to Flynn’s secondary residence, was a very large cardboard box incongruously labeled with a picture of bananas over the logo of the computer supply company they had ordered upgraded parts from. Judging from the quiet cursing filtering up the stairs, the laser had arrived too.

“You must be Clu. Huh.. you _do_ look just like him. How about that,” the stranger said after taking a long drag. Clu’s retort was cut short by a sneeze.

“Bless you!” Sam called out from the box, and Clu got a glimpse of him grinning through the grip-hole cut in the side.

“You triggered an alert phase, kid. Better go hide before the guards get ya,” the stranger said with a laugh as he slid the remains of his smoke into a little metal canister. From across the arcade, Jet yelled in triumph and started pelting in their general direction.

“Aw crap!” Sam said, and the box scurried off to re-locate just under the stairs.

“Dare I ask?”

“Sam there is being a super-spy. Think of it as the quiet game with more action. Dr. Bradley is waiting for ya downstairs.”

“Thanks,” Clu said, filing away the mention of a _quiet game_ to ask the Users about later. If it kept Sam in one place and not chattering at a thousand px a nanocycle, it was worth a shot no matter _how_ stupid it was.

“No problem.”

The secret room looked like a bomb had gone off, but it had been that way for the better part of a week. It was still strange to be in there without the subliminal hum of the fans, the Grid in shutdown as the physical machines sustaining his world were cleaned or replaced as the upgrade plan demanded. Roy had taken point with that work, being the User most involved with building his own physical systems. He was camped in the lab too, attacking a fan unit with a can of something that hissed while dust flew in the air around him. The main point of interest, though, was the new laser.

It had been packed carefully in a foam-filled case, disassembled, and Lora and another User were carefully unpacking each piece and checking it against a manifest on the other side of the cramped room. The original laser had already been packed away, ready to take the upgraded version’s place in storage. All three of the Users were engrossed in their work, muttering to themselves and making no notice as Clu peered inside. Would a status report be forthcoming soon? Did he dare to ask them about it and disrupt the delicate work? There was much more than his own curiosity at stake, and a small error _here_ could translate into a major problem once the system was back online.

“Oh! Hi, Clu,” Lora said, looking up from the manifest she was checking over.

“How is everything?” he asked. The other Users mumbled greetings, Roy adding a slightly misaimed wave. The other, unfamiliar User just half-hid behind the lid of the crate. Maybe he was shy.

“Good. Looks like we’ll be able to boot up in another day or two. Give it another week for debugging to be on the safe side, and you and Kevin ought to be able to switch back.”

“That soon?” He hadn’t really anticipated the switching back part, first because there was still the distinct possibility of _being deleted_ the moment Flynn left the system, and second because _wasn’t this supposed to take more time?_ It seemed like any change from the User world took decicycles… but then it _did_ take decicycles. It just turned out that really wasn’t nearly so long in _this_ iteration of reality as it was in the Grid. Even with the shutdown basically freezing time for the system, Flynn had been in for what? A few cycles by now?

Somehow, no matter how many times the others scowled and swore Flynn was not going to be deleting anyone, _thank you_ , Clu couldn’t quite believe it.

“If you want to stay and visit a bit longer—“

“No. I _should_ be getting back.” The sleep deprivation was getting worse, not better, and Jalen was starting to feel it too. The long silence where the system should be. At least if they were deleted for glitches, they would be _home_ first.

“Fair enough. I guess it’s been long enough to start feeling homesick,” Lora said, and stretched before giving Clu a rueful look. “Speaking of, care to help with the renovations?”

“Is there _room_?”

“Oof. _Point_. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Do you need anything?” Clu said. He could afford to play gracious host, and the little place _was_ a crowded mess of people and components. He didn’t think even _Sam_ would be able to fit without damaging something.

“Caffeine. I’m not picky how,” Lora said. Clu offered her a mock-salute and took himself out. It never hurt to be nice to his system architects.

Sam and Jet had joined forces in the meantime, if the giggling box attempting to creep up on the smoking User-minion was any indication. His counterpart was nowhere to be seen, and after giving the small Users a wide berth, Clu headed up to Flynn’s backup dwelling to start the requested caffeine… and perhaps to change out of the sweat-sticky User clothes because the arcade’s air conditioning was starting to make him shiver.

Jalen was sprawled on the couch there, but he roused and managed a weak smile that turned a little wider as Clu started stripping off the damp clothes.

“Headache again?” Clu said, a note of sympathy in his voice.

“Yeah. Made the mistake of _thinking_ about that tower design. I miss the _math_ ,” Jalen said plaintively, and sure enough the architectural drawing was on the low table nearby. “It would be a perfect design for a new admin building, though, and admin could _use_ an upgraded structure with the new capacity you arranged for the system. The partitioning is so good that it could support a communications nexus with just a little tweaking.”

“I thought the whole point was that it couldn’t be built?” Clu said, rifling around for a shirt that didn’t have _Flynn’s_ emblazoned on it. After weeks of having to borrow Flynn’s wardrobe, he was tempted to _burn_ all the arcade shirts. He was starting to suspect that Sam had been named by his mother, since it seemed like everything of Flynn’s was _named_ for him. He had been more than a little gleeful to get the board to agree to re-naming FlynnOS to something a little bit more appropriate-sounding for the base architecture of a system. Not that it had been difficult.

“Not _here_ ,” Jalen said, his voice going a little dreamy even if it was pained, “But first-approximation seems highly compatible with the Grid. I just wish I could calculate it fully. I want to go _home_.”

“Lora says that will be a few days, maybe a little more than a week from now, if debugging goes well,” Clu said, re-dressing mechanically.

“That soon?”

“That’s what I said.”

“I wonder what it’ll look like when all is said and done,” Jalen said, finally levering up. It gave Clu space to sit once he had the coffee started for the Users toiling in the basement.

“Brighter. It was brighter the last time the system was upgraded,” he said slowly, digging back through memory files gone fuzzy in this User shell. “Everything was faster, crisper, like a filter had been removed from the world. Eventually we all adjusted to the new parameters, but for a while it was all… I don’t know. _Potential_.”

“I want to see it.”

“I know.”

They lapsed into silence, leaning against one another. Clu closed his eyes, wishing for the thousandth time he had a live connection to Jalen and making due with clasped hands and the warmth along his side where the weary ISO rested. It wasn’t fair. The lost cycles, the aching silence… and these could be their last moments of peace.

“Dance with me,” Clu heard himself saying, and Jalen cracked open one eye to give him a skeptical look.

“Now?”

“It could be our last chance.”

“There isn’t any music.”

“So?”

Jalen made an aggravated noise and lurched to his feet, Clu following not much more gracefully after. Maybe exhaustion in the wake of his performance at Encom was making him punchy. Making them both punchy—the usual squabble over who led lasted all of a few nanocycles. The coffee maker added a sort of rhythm, at least, and Jalen laughed softly as they swayed slowly through the small space.

“You’re crazy,” the architect murmured, smiling.

“If I wasn’t, we wouldn’t be _here_.”

“It’s a good crazy. I don’t regret it.”

“What? Shoving me through the Portal?” Clu tried to make the question sound light.

“Any of it. I love you.”

He sighed. “I love you, too.”

The coffee finished, but they swayed on, synchronized to a different beat that was more felt than heard. Clu knew he should move, deliver the coffee, write up what he had done with Encom in Flynn’s absence so that the User didn’t immediately un-do his hard work terrorizing the executives into functionality. Break the spell and let time resume its reckless pace forward until the too-far-away and too-soon date of their return to the system and the _unknown_ future.

“We’ll be all right,” Jalen said after a few moments of silence, their impromptu dance winding down on its own. Clu nodded, not sure if he could trust his words to not turn venomous at Jalen’s optimism. His counterpart just rolled his eyes again and leaned down for a kiss, gentle and slow. “Get some rest. I’ll give the Users their caffeine.”

“Are you—“

“ _Try_ to sleep. You’re insufferable without enough down-time. Worry all the time. My head hurts too much to deal with you.”

For _that_ , Clu dragged him in for another kiss, if only to wipe the smirk off his face.


	8. Happily Ever After

“Aren’t you gonna eat anything?” Sam said around a mouthful of chocolate chip waffles, and Clu left off staring at the orange juice Jalen had poured for him to regard the little User. Sam was almost bouncing in place, a faint smear of peanut butter on one cheek, but breakfast had seemed wise in light of all the unknown variables the day would bring.

 

“No,” Clu said finally and took a pointed sip of the juice. He was starting to regret the sleepless night before spent checking and re-checking the notes to Flynn and the overall organization of the house. Whatever else might happen, he was _not_ going to be faulted for taking shoddy care of the User world responsibilities he’d taken. Beside him, Jalen snorted and picked another bite out of the waffle he was slowly shredding.

“You’re gonna get hungry.”

“I’ll take the chance.”

“He’s going to be stubborn. It’s best to ignore him when he whines later,” Jalen said in a stage-whisper, and Sam giggled and returned to shoving the waffle into his face as fast as possible. Their trip to the arcade was predicated upon his finishing breakfast, and Clu wasn’t sure he’d ever seen the little User consume anything so fast. Under the breakfast bar, Clu took Jalen’s hand and squeezed, grateful for the timely distraction even if it was at his expense. He wasn’t sure he could take Sam’s well-meaning interrogation.

Eventually Jalen gave up on the pretense of eating, and took the barely-depleted juice too to clean up. Clu propelled Sam through washing up, summoning a sickly smile when Sam scowled up at him.

“Stop worrying!” Sam said finally, once teeth—sans the missing one, which was carefully awaiting Flynn’s return before sacrifice to something called a tooth fairy—were brushed and pajamas were exchanged for clothes.

“I’m not worrying.”

“Yes you are! Here, wait,” Sam said, and ducked back into his room.

“We’re going to be late!” Clu said, watching from the doorframe as Sam started tearing through his toys for something.

“Not _that_ late! Ha. Found it!” He emerged from a tumble of stuffed animals clutching a familiar plastic shape. The miniature Tron, lit defiantly white. “Now we can go.”

“You’re going to meet the real Tron. You don’t need it.”

“I don’t. It’s for you,” Sam said, and pointedly held out the small figure. Not sure what else to do with it, Clu took it. The likeness wasn’t that accurate, expression missing the hint of mischief that was Tron’s signature as much as the light-up tetramino.

“Thanks?”

“We’re going to be late,” Jalen said, but his smile was indulgent even as he held the tube with his pilfered drawings to his chest. Clu pocketed the figure, shooing both grinning bitbrains out to the car since there were too many of them to ride safely on the ‘cycle. It was early, dawn casting shadows everywhere, and the traffic was light as they pulled in front of the building conveniently labeled Flynn’s. Lora’s van was already parked outside, and while the din of video games machines wasn’t echoing into the street, _someone_ had turned on the jukebox.

Sam raced ahead, and for a change neither Clu nor Jalen tried to catch him as he charged past the games cabinets and into the cool dark of the basement lab. The smell of fresh paint wafted out, enough to get a sneeze out of Clu, but the dusty, ill-lit corridor of their arrival was gone. Instead, the narrow hall was swept clean and motion-lights installed that woke as Sam dashed through. The door to the lab was unlocked and open, and within…

The Grid hummed around them, shielded server cabinets towering within a few inches of the low ceiling and green status lights all around. A pair of monitors had been added to supplement the main adaptive interface, suspended on arms so they could be moved about at will. Set in the desk, where the Grid’s main hardware had been, was the new emergency power supply to prevent sudden shutdowns and the havoc they always caused on restart. There was also a breeze in the formerly stuffy room, partially the result of the robust cooling system Roy had installed and partially due to simple enhanced air circulation. The mark-eight laser had its own place of honor, pointed parallel to the desk, and a target square had been painted onto the concrete floor. Nobody was going to be able to _accidentally_ zap themselves into the system to give Portal Control a headache.

Alan, Lora, and Roy were all there, waiting. Alan and Roy had taken the chairs at the desk, and Lora was humming over the laser’s connectors.

“Is it ready? Can we go?” Sam said, bounding straight up to Alan to peer curiously at whatever was on the desk’s screen.

“They’re all set inside. Are you ready?” Alan said, looking up to encompass Clu and Jalen in the question. They had re-joined hands at some point in the walk into the arcade. Clu took a breath, trying to push aside the nerves that once more had him wanting to lock on the edge of decision.

“We’re as ready as we’re going to get,” Jalen said, adding a squeeze that Clu gratefully returned.

“And I can _come_?” Sam said. Tron had security cleared things the night before, but that was the better part of a decicycle ago and things could have changed within the system. Clu found himself hoping that Sam was still cleared. He _wanted_ Sam to see the Grid, even if it was only the once. Maybe it was his way of trying to make up for depriving Sam of Flynn’s company. Clu _liked_ his self-designated little brother.

“Somebody’s gotta make sure everyone behaves,” Roy said with a wink.

“Yes, you can come.”

“Portal Control is ready. Get in the target if you’re going,” Lora said, “Say hello to Yori for me.”

“And Tron! Tell him we’ll be next to visit,” Alan said, grinning before he turned back to the desk to monitor things from outside.

They obediently shuffled into the target box. It was just big enough to hold the three of them. Sam, after a moment, grabbed Clu’s hand and flashed him an uncertain smile.

“Thank you,” Clu said to the Users as the laser whined off to the side, powering up.

“Anytime,” Roy said, offering a little salute, and then the basement _dissolved_.

The Grid blinked _on_.

Feeds woke one by one, data pouring in through silenced connections. Security—green. Power management—green. Traffic—green. He could feel system heads noting his presence, their welcoming pings echoing in his head even before the rest of his senses finished coming on-line. Instead of the dust and warm-plastic of the User world, there was the clean ozone of _home_. Beside him, he could feel—actually _feel_ —Jalen’s groggy status-ok, his reflexive rummage into the Grid’s math and pleasure when he registered in his own way that the system was fixed, _stable_ , running optimal compared to their last known data point.

Clu opened his eyes to the bright-edged potential of memories gone by, the darkness of the default landing point familiar. A copy of Flynn’s User-world lab… minus the dust. He had never known.

“Wow that was neat.. where are we?” Sam said, his eyes wide as he stared up. Only Sam was still dressed in the User clothes of the morning, both Jalen and Clu returned to their familiar gridsuits, and after a nano’s consideration Clu reached back and un-docked the disk between his shoulders. The white-lit inner ring gave away its owner even before a quick check to the interface. Flynn’s disk, safe and sound.

“This is the Grid,” Clu said, elbowing Jalen to break him from the trance his contemplation of the system’s new parameters had started. The ISO started and then laughed sheepishly.

“It’s dark and boring.”

“This is the entry point,” Clu corrected, “Let’s go out and see who’s waiting.”

A shiver of uncertainty accompanied the words, but he managed to keep his voice steady. There were no game cabinets in the Grid’s version of Flynn’s, but the empty space had been replaced with a massive work console populated with unfamiliar programs. Lora’s portal control programs, but Clu didn’t see a Yori on the process list. She must still be stationed at the main portal control area. He traded greeting pings with them, forgoing conversation in respect for their focus on monitoring the laser’s performance.

Outside… Clu had to make an effort not to tighten his hold on Sam’s hand once they stepped through the doors. Gathered on the street were familiar faces. Tron, Radia, Gibson, Shaddox… _Flynn_. With a happy shriek, Sam zoomed forward and into Flynn’s waiting arms. Jalen’s hand found his as they watched the reunion, their conversation pitched too quietly to overhear. Flynn ruffled Sam’s curls, let his head be dragged close so that Sam could whisper something to him, and burst out laughing. The little User stuck his tongue out, hiding behind Flynn’s leg as he watched Tron with wide-eyed speculation. Tron was eyeing Sam right back, no doubt thrown by how _tiny_ he was.

Clu himself felt frozen. This was the end, wasn’t it? The system was safe; the other Users would at the very least keep Flynn on-task.

“I’m going to say hello,” Jalen murmured into Clu’s ear, and reluctantly the administrator let his hand go. Alone now at the top of the steps, Clu watched Jalen collect a hug from Radia and Sam shuffle over to Tron with an embarrassed grin. Shaddox and Gibson drifted over, curious to see the tube that Jalen had hauled from the User world, and then Clu had Flynn’s undivided attention.

There was something _more_ to the User, something that tugged old tags from when he was first compiled, echoing that bright-edged potential that Clu could feel lurking in the system’s enhanced capacity. Swallowing nervously, knowing he couldn’t put it off any more, Clu descended, undocking the borrowed master key as he went. Flynn was smiling, incongruous, and produced a gold-lit disk from his own dock. So that was what Tron did with it, and Clu could cheerfully _strangle_ the security program.

“Here,” Clu said, gruff, and offered the key. Silently, still half-smiling, Flynn accepted the trade. Clu hesitated to dock his disk, but only for a few nanocycles. There wasn’t anything he _could_ do if there was something on his disk, not really, and it would all be moot within the millicycle when Sam and Flynn left for their home. It synched smoothly, temp memory logging a format command as his visit to the User world was backed up. Nothing untoward, nothing he could _detect_ , and Flynn just emitted a satisfied sigh as his own disk was re-docked.

“I—“ Clu started, determined to at least give a briefing or _something_ to stop the maddening lack of words from his normally so-talkative User, when he was pulled forward into a hug.

 _[Acknowledgement/pride/affection]_ pinged through the touch, loud and clear, and Clu’s processes stuttered to a complete _halt_. Flynn was laughing again, a low chuckle, and Clu hesitantly raised his hands to loosely hold Flynn’s upper arms.

“I fixed your company. I think one of your executives was stealing programs. Sam’s tooth was _not_ my fault. I didn’t want to try calling your parents, and they might be angry with you. Roy said to tell you that the credit card bill isn’t my fault either, and Alan said he wants a new popcorn machine,” Clu babbled, unable to reconcile. Flynn had been _furious_ when he left, never able to focus on what he had to say for more than a few microcycles, and this didn’t _compute_. “Your housekeeping is atrocious and _please_ actually read the notes I left you. I—“

“I love you too, kiddo,” Flynn said, patting his back. “Thanks.”

“For _what_?” Had he _broken_ his User?

“Kicking my ass. I needed it.”

The grin wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair, nor was the stab of hope rising through his core, and Sam coming up to cling to his leg _definitely_ wasn’t fair _at all_.

“C’mon I wanna see the _Grid_! The street is _boring_!” Sam complained, seizing both Clu and Flynn and trying to drag them away despite his obviously inferior mass.

“Guess we better humor him,” Flynn said, his eyes dancing good humor that called painfully to Clu’s memory of his compilation. “Think you’re up for a tour before we get out of your hair?”

“I—I should see what you’ve _messed up_ ,” Clu managed, feeling the beginnings of a smile as Flynn laughed and clapped him on the back.

“I’m not the one who decided to make sure the system was hideously overbuilt. That was all you, kid.”

“We’ll need the capacity when the Sea is cleaned,” Clu said, but it was hard to feel defensive.

“Yeah, yeah, I already got the riot act from Alan. Dude’s scary even in type, you know?”

“I had reason to learn.”

Flynn’s arm around his shoulders was warm, and as they passed the others Jalen recaptured his hand with a relieved grin. Sam ran ahead for the lightrunner that the others had apparently brought with them, and only a lunge from Tron kept him from jumping into the driver’s seat.

“So,” Flynn said lightly, “Still gonna create the perfect system?”

“I can try,” Clu said quietly.


End file.
